


Tears of a Doctor (Charlotte's Story)

by firefliesforlanterns



Category: Falsettos - Lapine/Finn
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/F, Hospitals, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, friends - Freeform, im emo about charlotte
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-30
Updated: 2016-11-30
Packaged: 2018-09-03 05:26:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8698792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firefliesforlanterns/pseuds/firefliesforlanterns
Summary: Charlotte is professional. She doesn't cry, no matter how taxing or tragic her job as a doctor can be. But she's failed to save her close friend, and tears aren't easy to hold back.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Falsettos: the musical with about five fics, and none featuring my favorite character who I might relate to just a bit much for comfort.

      Charlotte had been a young woman, only in her sophomore year of high school, when she noticed the way that she looked at Alice Healy was different than the way she'd looked at anyone before. Alice’s long brown hair that fell over her shoulders and onto Charlotte’s desk. Alice’s pink lipstick that her rich aunt had bought for her in Los Angeles, Alice’s laugh that was bell-like and rang through the halls of the school when Charlotte heard it. Charlotte, of course, came to the conclusion that she simply wanted to be Alice’s friend, until the night in December that had changed everything. After choir practice one night, Alice had pulled Charlotte into a dusty stairwell and smiled at her sweetly. She had taken Charlotte’s hands and leaned in close to enough for Charlotte to smell the faint fragrance of some kind of perfume. “Can I kiss you?” Alice had whispered, and Charlotte could only answer with the kiss that Alice asked for. Charlotte felt more in love and more right than she ever had when she was with a boy. She and Alice had discovered their truth. 

      Or so she had thought. Just soon after that first question, Charlotte and Alice were broken apart, torn away from each other by their furious choir teacher. Alice’s neat, straight hair was untidy, Charlotte’s dark skin marked with Alice’s signature light pink kisses like a tree covered in blossoms. There was no mistaking the events that had occurred. The two girls were whisked straight to the headmistress of their school in a frightened panic, screamed and shouted at. Both of their parents were called. Charlotte’s hippie parents never cared about the event, they pretended like it never even happened. She was safe. But Alice had cried, and cried, and cried as her father dragged her home.

      Charlotte didn't see Alice at school for nearly a year. By the end of her junior year, she had buried her dangerous thoughts and love underneath her ambitious aspirations of being a physician. When Alice returned, she was very different from the wild, blossom-lipped girl that Charlotte remembered. Her hair was still long, but kept in neat braids that the old Alice never would have worn. She flinched at loud noises, and spoke softly. But the thing that hurt the most was that she now hated Charlotte. The one time they had tried to talk, she had asked if Charlotte’s thoughts had gone away. She’d tried to lie, but the word “No” left her mouth before she could. “Oh,” she had responded, averting her gaze. They never talked again after that.

      College was mostly like high school. Charlotte’s studies took over most of her time, although her roommate, a young man named Whizzer Brown, kept inviting her to parties with his girlfriend, Cordelia. One night, they had dragged her along. She didn't remember most of the party, of course, but she remembered the events after it.

      Cordelia and Whizzer had brought her outside, the three of them drunk and giggling as they waited for one of Whizzer’s friends to pick them up. Cordelia nudged Charlotte and had asked, “Wanna know a secret? About me? And Whizzer?”

      Charlotte must have said yes, because Cordelia had called Whizzer over to the tall street lamp that she and Charlotte were beneath. She had laughed, alcohol on her breath, and motioned to Whizzer. “Tell her!” Cordelia had said, laughing. “Oh, but you,” she said, pointing at Charlotte with an over-exaggerated motion, “Have to promise not to tell anyone.”

      Charlotte had managed a nod in between her drunkenness and her anxiety about Whizzer and Cordelia’s “secret”. Were they members of the mafia? Had they killed someone? Were they going to kill  _ her _ ?

      Whizzer had whispered “I'm gay,” to Charlotte, except the whisper was really more like a shout. “Shhhh!” Cordelia had said, then turned to Charlotte. “But I am too! We’re just friends. We pretend to date so people don't get, suspicious, you know?”

      Charlotte burst into laughter. “That means you like girls, and he likes guys, right?” She sighed, letting her laughter finish. ”Honey, I am the gayest of them all!”

Cordelia had started to cry and laugh at the same time. Charlotte didn't really remember much after that, but every weekend when Charlotte wasn’t busy, they’d go out and meet Whizzer’s other gay friends. For the first time in a long time, she felt as if she finally belonged.

      College ended, medical school began. In med school, she was still gay. She'd write letters every day to Cordelia, who was trying desperately not to fail out of culinary school. She knew becoming a doctor was what she wanted: she wasn't good with talking or emotions, but good God, she wanted to help people. She wasn't particularly fond of hospitals or doctors herself, but she braced herself and braved her nervousness. She got by, and she got her degree. She started as a nurse, and worked her way up slowly to the position of a doctor. She and Cordelia started living together, a little apartment that they loved near the hospital. Cordelia still was trying to be a caterer. Charlotte ate always ate her food, no matter how strange and disgusting it was. She loved her girlfriend too much to tell her the truth. They would sometimes have Whizzer over for dinner, and he'd bring boys with him. Until one boy, an angry man named Marvin, kept showing up with him. And then Whizzer stopped coming to dinner.

      The years went by, and then that Marvin moved in next to them. They'd see his son Jason, they'd talk to his ex wife who was desperately in need of some therapy, they'd have dinner together every Saturday. All was well, all was well.

      But something bad always must happen. Charlotte had treated so many young men, all with the same unknowable condition, and their deaths didn't haunt her much. People died every day at the hospital. It saddened Charlotte, but as a doctor, she was strong. She would stay with patient’s families and deliver them news with a stone face. She would comfort them while staying indifferent, yet compassionate. If a doctor began to cry, who would be the last hope of a desperate patient and their family?

      They came to the hospital on a sunny fall day, one of the last days of warmth before the frost set in. Charlotte knew something was terribly wrong when Marvin asked for her specifically to examine him. Marvin hadn't liked her that much, and she and Whizzer, although friends, weren't particularly close. Whizzer barely reacted at all when she examined him. The man who used to talk so much and so brightly was now quiet. The only sounds in the room were his heavy, short breaths and Marvin’s quick, off-key singing.

      Whizzer’s hospital stay hurt Charlotte more than it seemed to hurt him. Charlotte knew that Whizzer hated hospitals. Occasionally, she’d reprise her old role as a nurse to check on him. She sang to him for even the smallest procedure. Was it improper? Maybe so. But Whizzer was her friend, and she didn't want him to be scared. Everything will be alright, everything will be alright.

      And at the Bar Mitzvah of his stepson, the party they never thought he’d make it to, he motioned to her. He had his hand on Jason’s shoulder, but he was almost buckling and falling onto the young boy. She understood. She’d seen patients just moments before death. Whizzer’s time, though he’d tried to prolong it, was nearly up. Helping him walk, she led him to an adjacent empty room and lay him down on the bed. 

      “Hey Doc?” He asked, the words falling from his lips like the last drops of water from a jug.

      “Whizzer?” She responded, close to tears. She could not cry. She could not dash away his comfort, her friend’s comfort. He knew, and she knew, but she had to hold out.

      “You can cry now,” he said, a half-smile gracing his face. “Just don’t when you tell Marvin, okay?”

      Tears began to fall onto her lab coat before she even registered his words. She nodded, biting her lip, her mascara beginning to run riverbeds down her face. “Do you want me to get Marvin and the others now?”

      She knew the answer. Entering the other room, she closed her eyes and beckoned them. They knew it was time. Their family really was remarkable, she thought, as she watched them leave through the door. Trina was holding Cordelia, Jason’s sweater was pulled up high around his face. 

      She opened the door for them, but stayed outside. The clock in the hallway ticked slowly as she heard the muffled sounds of her found family crying and laughing and singing. She stayed outside the room as tears rushed down her already wet face, soaking her pristine white coat with flecks of muddy mascara. She wasn’t even trying to hide it anymore: by the time they left, everyone else would be too hurt to notice that the doctor herself had been crying in the hall. Whizzer, though overdramatic and ridiculous, was a true friend. He didn’t deserve it-- nobody did, of course, but that man was so bright and so passionate that he was unforgettable. Unstoppable, unbeatable Whizzer Brown, beaten and taken too soon in his game.

      The last line of the little tune from behind the wall flickered out, and Doctor Charlotte Valentine buried her head in her hands one last time. Then, she straightened up, wiped her eyes and did her best to hide the splashes of running makeup. The time for tears was over: she had work to do.


End file.
